[James2001]

I guess you could say the later series of The Disney Club was a lot like Number 73 with it being scripted segments with the presenters playing characters in between the usual interviews, features and performances (though Craig Doyle tended to handle most of that rather than the younger presenters). Which is why Paul "jailbird" Ballard was known as Des, as that was his Disney Club character, but it stuck even after he took on the more straightforward presenting role in Roadhog and Diggit. In the video I posted a couple of pages back you can see Gunnar Cauthery was called Roland, and when he joined later on Reggie Yates' character was called Robbie (though he did occasionally present Diggit with his real name), I think Fearne Cotton was the only child/teen presenter to use her real name (as she became presenter via winning a contest- I remember a few years back seeing a programme showing a clip of "Des" revealing her as the winner).

The Goggle watch segments that took over CITV continuity for a week a year for a while in the 90s was a similar sort of idea, Why Don't You ended up that way towards the end as well, and the first series of Parallel 9 (less so the second and third when they had presenters separate to the scripted characters).

[TIGHazard]

I guess you could say the later series of The Disney Club was a lot like Number 73 with it being scripted segments with the presenters playing characters in between the usual interviews, features and performances (though Craig Doyle tended to handle most of that rather than the younger presenters). Which is why Paul "jailbird" Ballard was known as Des, as that was his Disney Club character, but it stuck even after he took on the more straightforward presenting role in Roadhog and Diggit. In the video I posted a couple of pages back you can see Gunnar Cauthery was called Roland, and when he joined later on Reggie Yates' character was called Robbie (though he did occasionally present Diggit with his real name), I think Fearne Cotton was the only child/teen presenter to use her real name (as she became presenter via winning a contest- I remember a few years back seeing a programme showing a clip of "Des" revealing her as the winner).

The Goggle watch segments that took over CITV continuity for a week a year for a while in the 90s was a similar sort of idea, Why Don't You ended up that way towards the end as well, and the first series of Parallel 9 (less so the second and third when they had presenters separate to the scripted characters).

There was also CBBC's 2004 show Mysti.

en.wikipedia.org 

Mysti - Wikipedia
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The hour-long shows were a mix of drama and entertainment, featuring 40 minutes of magazine and feature content wrapped around two 10-minute segments of narrative drama. The feature content included a game show element titled The Battle of Elbubb.

The characters within the narrative segments included Mysti (Laura Aikman), who is half-human and half-fairy; and her friends Rick (Oliver Mason), Ella (Eva Alexander), Ollie (Ashley Campbell), and Abby (Yasmin Paige). Other characters also appeared frequently, such as Professor Dust (David Sterne) and Tatiana (Tricia George), fairies Snowdrop (Amy Pemberton) and Peaceblossom (Danielle Tabor), and diner owner Mr. K (Richard James).

Mysti, Rick, Ella, and Ollie would also appear, in character, as the presenters of the magazine segments of the show.

[James2001]

Another Number 73 from only a couple of weeks after the last one, beginning with another WAC link up at the very start, though talking through the TV rather than the phone:

www.youtube.com 

And Frank Sidebottom credited as "Francis Sidebottom", getting a bit formal 🤣

[Stooky Bill]

I guess you could say the later series of The Disney Club was a lot like Number 73 with it being scripted segments with the presenters playing characters in between the usual interviews, features and performances (though Craig Doyle tended to handle most of that rather than the younger presenters). Which is why Paul "jailbird" Ballard was known as Des, as that was his Disney Club character, but it stuck even after he took on the more straightforward presenting role in Roadhog and Diggit. In the video I posted a couple of pages back you can see Gunnar Cauthery was called Roland, and when he joined later on Reggie Yates' character was called Robbie (though he did occasionally present Diggit with his real name), I think Fearne Cotton was the only child/teen presenter to use her real name (as she became presenter via winning a contest- I remember a few years back seeing a programme showing a clip of "Des" revealing her as the winner).

The Goggle watch segments that took over CITV continuity for a week a year for a while in the 90s was a similar sort of idea, Why Don't You ended up that way towards the end as well, and the first series of Parallel 9 (less so the second and third when they had presenters separate to the scripted characters).

It happened a couple of times on Motormouth too. The first series which took over from 7T3 had a scripted element called Spin Off, set supposedly behind the scenes of the programme. Then they abandoned that idea until the 4th and last series when a similar production team narrative was mixed with the traditional show.

I do remember being slightly confused by the fictional vs real life names, especially when Motormouth started and Dawn became Andrea. Their mode of address was very different too.

I thought Sandi Toksvig's name was Ethel until she appeared on Whose Line Is It Anyway

---

Another Number 73 from only a couple of weeks after the last one, beginning with another WAC link up at the very start, though talking through the TV rather than the phone:

It's a really clever idea for breaking up the enforced break in flow of the children's programme. Presumably the idea was to try ans stop viewers turning over to BBC1 at 9:25

[James2001]

I find it strange I have no memories of Motormouth at all, or Ghost Train... the first time I remember even being aware they ever existed was seeing them online the best part of a decade after they finished. And it's not because I'm too young to remember it, as I remember Going Live, Parallel 9 and the 8:15 from Manchester- the latter of which ended a year before Motormouth, I can only assume I must have just rigidly stuck to the BBC on Saturdays (though I do remember the TV-am Saturday fare like Dappledown Farm and Top Banana). I do remember What's Up Doc and everything that followed though (including Telegantic Megavision... for my sins).

[Neil Jones]

I find it strange I have no memories of Motormouth at all, or Ghost Train... the first time I remember even being aware they ever existed was seeing them online the best part of a decade after they finished. And it's not because I'm too young to remember it, as I remember Going Live, Parallel 9 and the 8:15 from Manchester- the latter of which ended a year before Motormouth and Ghost Train, I can only assume I must have just rigidly stuck to the BBC on Saturdays (though I do remember the TV-am Saturday fare like Dappledown Farm and Top Banana). I do remember What's Up Doc and everything that followed though (including Telegantic Megavision... for my sins).

The only memorable thing from Motormouth for me was the giant Mouse Trap game which I'm surprised was never aired separately, as it was totally wasted as a segment in Motormouth for my money.

Everything else about Motomouth for me is a blur, aside from the fact Neil Buchanan was one of the presenters and he was pretty much on Children's ITV every week. Sometimes daily if the programmes fell correctly.

Mark Speight did Scratchy and Co in the mid 90s, which I can only presume I sat thorough for one or two of the cartoons as it was otherwise absolutely bloody dreadful.

[James2001]

Scratchy & Co ran for 4 years, so clearly enough people liked it!

Though when you ask people about the show, they only ever seem to remember the Max Headroom style with the fibreglass hair, which was only the first series- strange how that's what people remember rather than the majority of the run which was studio based with Mark's real hair.

[Larry the Loafer]

Scratchy & Co ran for 4 years, so clearly enough people liked it!

Though when you ask people about the show, they only ever seem to remember the Max Headroom style with the fibreglass hair, which was only the first series- strange how that's what people remember rather than the majority of the run which was studio based with Mark's real hair.

I had small albeit vivid memories of Scratchy and Co but that was well into it's studio-based era. I was bemused years later when I was reading up about it and saw it being compared to Max Headroom, as I had no idea how the show originally looked... I still think it's a stretch to compare it to Max Headroom, regardless.

[James2001]

When the show first began, the idea was actually that Scratchy was computer generated (the opening titles even began with him booting up), but for whatever reason they dropped that idea part way into the first series (and cut that part of the titles out, and replaced it with a bit with supposed childhood photos of Scratchy and a speil about how he was "an ordinary kid until he discovered Saturday mornings").

The most I can find of that though is this trailer which has a couple of seconds of the "booting up" part of the titles in it (44 seconds in):

www.youtube.com 

This video is from the back end of the first series and has the titles after that part had been removed (starts around the 4:10 mark):

www.youtube.com 

And for completeness, here's some of the last ever episode, by which time Gail Porter had become a full on co-presenter (and she wasn't off screens for long as she was back on the new series of Fully Booked literally the following day):
www.youtube.com 

[lookoutwales]

And for completeness, here's some of the last ever episode, by which time Gail Porter had become a full on co-presenter (and she wasn't off screens for long as she was back on the new series of Fully Booked literally the following day):
www.youtube.com 

And that was the ‘big budget’ version of the show!

Really sticking it into the bosses for losing time to F1 coverage.

From what I recall, Mark had noticeably toned down his Scratchy persona as the series went on.